Stocks muted as Trump delays strikes on Iran power plants

GfK revealed on Friday that the UK confidence index fell two points to -21 in March – the weakest level since Donald Trump announced sweeping import tariffs in April last year. At the time, the index sank to -23.

Neil Bellamy, the firm’s consumer insights director, said the survey showed people are concerned about the prospects for inflation and the economy.

The group said the sharp rise in energy prices caused by the effective closure of the strait of Hormuz and attacks on infrastructure in the region “has led to fears of higher inflation and weaker growth across oil-importing countries”.

A majority of respondents said the economy had improved modestly over the last year, but was about to decline significantly. They said they were likely to save more and spend less on big ticket items over the next 12 months as a result.

UK retail sales decreased in February as supermarket sales slipped and demand for household goods was impacted by wet weather, according to official figures.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the total volume of retail sales, which measures the quantity bought, fell by 0.4% last month.

It compared with a 2% rise in January, which was revised up from a previous estimate of 1.8%.

The monthly decline in February was nevertheless shallower than expected, with analysts having predicted a drop of 0.7% for the month.

A fall in supermarket sales partly contributed to the fresh monthly decline, falling by 0.6%.

All food stores, which includes convenience stores and specialist retailers, reported a 0.7% decline in sales volumes, marking the weakest level since August last year.

Elsewhere, the data showed that household goods stores saw weaker demand, dropping by 2.6%, with retailers partly blaming “wet weather” for reduced demand.

Met Office data indicated that the UK, had above average rainfall in February 2026, more so than in either January this year or the previous February.

Non-store retailers also reported a slight dip over the month, with retailers suggesting that consumers brought forward spending to January to make the most of post-Christmas discounts.

Matt Dalton, consumer sector leader at Forvis Mazars, said:

Stocks in Asia were mixed overnight, stuck in a wait and see mode, with the Nikkei (^N225) fell 0.4% on the day in Japan, while the Hang Seng (^HSI) rose 0.4% in Hong Kong.

The Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was 0.6% up by the end of the session and in South Korea, the Kospi (^KS11) lost 0.4% on the day. Part of the Kospi’s weakness was also due to the ongoing sell-off in South Korean chipmaker stocks from Google’s memory chip announcement.

Across the pond, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) slipped 1.7%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (^IXIC) was 2.4% down, both seeing their biggest declines since the start of the war and fell back to their lowest levels since September. The Dow Jones (^DJI) ended 1% lower, while the VIX index rose 2.11 points to 27.44pts, its highest since 6 March.

Part of the Wall Street selloff was also driven by the ongoing rout from Tuesday’s announcement that Google had found a new algorithm that could reduce the memory chip amount needed in AI models.

Good morning, and welcome back to our markets live blog. As usual we will be taking a deep dive into what’s moving markets and what’s happening across the global economy.

To the day ahead we’ll get the US March Kansas City Fed services activity, UK February retail sales. Central bank events include the ECB consumer expectations survey, and the Fed’s Daly and Paulson will speak.

Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the agenda today:

• 7am: UK retail sales for February

• 9am: ECB Consumer Inflation Expectations survey

• 2pm: University of Michigan consumer confidence report